TikTok seeks to reassure lawmakers about US data security

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Chinese social media site TikTok told US senators it was working on a final agreement with the US government that « will fully protect user data and the national security interests of the United States », according to a letter seen Friday by Reuters.

TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew told senators in a letter dated Thursday that the short video app was working with Oracle Corp on « new advanced data security controls that we hope to finalize in the near future. » Last month, TikTok said it had completed migrating its US user information to Oracle servers, but it still uses US and Singaporean data centers for backup.

TikTok’s letter acknowledged that China-based employees « may have access to U.S. TikTok user data subject to a series of robust cybersecurity controls and authorization approval protocols overseen by our US-based security team. United States ». TikTok said that by continuing to work on data issues, it expects to « remove protected US user data from our own systems and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US » (Report by David Shepardson and Echo Wang)